More on Love and Partners, Family and Friends as Christmas Draws Near

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet CXVI)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

	-- William Shakespeare

I never took anyone out of my picks - or out of this blog,  just  because we are no longer together as lovers or partners.  That's not what love is about. 

Love does not disappear.  The people whom I have loved are still the finest people I have known - they are there for me when I need them.

And they are dear to me - as dear as anyone in my life.  They are the beating of my heart and the pulsing of my blood.  I would never want to be without them, even if love changes its form.

As life develops and as we grow, the people with whom we have shared passion and caring, love and concern, they don't leave us.  We may have had our problems, but in the end, I know that they will be by my side if I need them.  And they know that of me.

The people I have listed in my posts over time - Esmie and Nicho and Micah and Mak and Simon and Kat and Masa and Jamie and Celty - they are the true wealth that sustains you.  Their love moves with you through troubles, through hard times.  Even if life changes, their love does not.

As we move towards Christmas, as we traverse the journey that Advent represents, as we await like children the coming of the light and presents and food and eggnog and sweets and celebration, it is good to remember the real gift we celebrate  - the love of friends and family. 

Like the aphorism over the doorway of the Chapel by the Sea in SL that Mason Fredriksson built - "Unbidden, the Lord is present" - so too without having to ask, the love of these friends is given.  They are the manifestation of what the love of God would mean to us - in their hearts is the true meaning of spirit and divinity. 

If you are lucky enough to have that in your life, it's not something  you give up or toss away.  It is something you cherish for as long as you live.